


Wyverns of a Feather

by dr33g



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Zine: The Golden Scheme, brain small, head empty, im so bad at tagging fml, just lmk if i need to add anything or if i should
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25112362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr33g/pseuds/dr33g
Summary: The stars had always been something he liked. So grand and colorful, he almost wished he could reach up, dip his hands in their purple and cream, and paint his face with their majesty. So far away, ever twinkling and spinning with the earth beneath his feet, unaffected by everything he’s ever cared about. However, they were always eternally out of reach. He would never see them any closer than before.At least, that’s what he assumed.Claude overheard Seteth talking one day. He was speaking to the Professor, describing to them the techniques for riding a wyvern.“What made you pick up wyvern riding?” they asked. Seteth made a face of thinly veiled panic. Claude filed that away for later, but before he could analyze much more of the man’s actions, he said something that made the student’s ears twitch.“Ah, well, my wife always liked stargazing. She loved flying because it let her feel like she could nearly touch the stars. I picked it up so I could go with her.” The archer stood there, stunned.First off, Seteth has amazing taste in spouses. Second off, I need to learn how to fly.
Kudos: 6





	Wyverns of a Feather

**Author's Note:**

> hello !!! this is my piece from The Golden Scheme which was a claude zine !!! im very happy i got the chance to work with everyone and i hope you enjoy my piece!

The stars had always been something he liked. So grand and colorful, he almost wished he could reach up, dip his hands in their purple and cream, and paint his face with their majesty. So far away, ever twinkling and spinning with the earth beneath his feet, unaffected by everything he’s ever cared about. However, they were always eternally out of reach. He would never see them any closer than before.

At least, that’s what he assumed. 

Claude overheard Seteth talking one day. He was speaking to the Professor, describing to them the techniques for riding a wyvern. 

“What made you pick up wyvern riding?” they asked. Seteth made a face of thinly veiled panic. Claude filed that away for later, but before he could analyze much more of the man’s actions, he said something that made the student’s ears twitch.

“Ah, well, my wife always liked stargazing. She loved flying because it let her feel like she could nearly touch the stars. I picked it up so I could go with her.” The archer stood there, stunned. 

_ First off, Seteth has amazing taste in spouses. Second off, I need to learn how to fly. _ Just as Claude turned on his foot to leave, Professor Byleth made eye contact with him, if only for a moment.

When Claude asked to be put on skywatch a few days later, he wasn’t surprised that they had already signed him up.

\--

“Um, this is Milady. She will be your wyvern, for now.” Marianne placed a gentle hand on the wyvern’s nose, giving it a swift rub. “I think it is best if you introduce yourself to her slowly. Most wyverns are not very quick to trust.” She backed up, allowing her hand to flow over Milady’s antlers and letting it rest on the wyvern’s neck. Claude nodded to her, offering his hand out to Milady, palm up. She slowly eased forward, giving it a sniff. Whatever she smelled, she must’ve approved, because she simply backed up, looked him in the eye, then bowed to him.   
“No, no, the pleasure is all mine, Milady,” Claude said with a grin, bowing in return.

“Well, looks like she respects you… though, I’d still be careful. Wyverns are prideful creatures.” Marianne had a look he knew well—the look of someone who felt trapped and wanted to leave. 

“Thank you for your help, Marianne. Really. I have some business to attend to, so I hope you don’t mind putting Milady back in the eyrie?” Watching Marianne’s body relax caused relief to flood through him, echoing her feelings. 

“Oh, not at all.” Her other hand came up to scratch Milady’s throat, and the wyvern let out a rumble—holy shit, wyverns can purr? That’s amazing. Another reason why this was an excellent idea. “I’d be happy to. Please, don’t let me hold you up.” 

He smiled and nodded, off to go figure out what wyverns liked as treats. 

“Oh, he’s going to be a handful for you, isn’t he, Milady?” The wyvern simply chuffed back, clearly agreeing. Marianne giggled. 

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll all work out,” she said.

\--

“Claude and Hilda on skywatch this week.” Hilda fist-pumped him, nudging his shoulder with a grin.

“You wouldn’t let a maiden such as myself get on a  _ wyvern _ ?! I could get seriously injured, you know!” Byleth had long since learned to ignore Hilda’s pleading, not even sparing her a second glance as they continued with the lesson planning. 

Claude scoffed, saying, “Hilda, you should know by now that doesn’t work on me or the Professor. Besides, your wyvern was a gift from your brother. I’m sure Vaida will get lonely without you.”

Hilda whined, “Oh, boo! You’re no fun! Whatever, Vaida and I are  _ both _ delicate, not meant for such tasks!”

“Sure, sure, Vaida, the battle wyvern, raised by General Holst Goneril himself, is delicate.”

The Professor smiled, marking down this Friday as a perfect success, preemptively. When Friday came, they didn’t have to change it.

\--

“Hey, Cyril.”

“Yeah, Claude?”

“Why did you decide to pick up flying?” The boy was quiet. Only the sound of flapping wings filled the air. 

“I-I think it was because I always wanted to travel Fodlan one day. And if my skills on wyvernback can help Lady Rhea, then why not learn it, y’know?”

“Right! Right.” Milady could sense his unease and shook her head in annoyance, telling him to focus. He gave her a pat of acknowledgment. She huffed in response. Classic Milady. 

“How about you, Claude? Why'd you choose to ride wyverns?” Claude leaned back a little, looking up at the clouds and the sun and the wind and the world above him, knowing Milady would keep him on track. He pondered his answer for a moment, before a smile that nearly reached his eyes fell upon his face.

“Because the sky is so far out of reach, it felt like it was challenging me to come up and take a piece for myself.”

\--

Losing the Professor was the first of many things that reminded Claude to stay on his guard, stay vigilant, and keep the mask securely fastened to his face. The second was witnessing the monastery falling into disrepair and letting all the wyverns go after Lady Rhea's disappearance. Having to watch Milady and the rest of the beasts fly off into the horizon… he could feel the wall construct itself. Step by step, day by day, he felt himself close off again. 

He missed Byleth. He missed Milady. He missed Lorenz, Hilda, Marianne, Raphael, Ignatz, Leonie, and Lysithea.

Still, he had always known his journey would be one he took alone. He would have to cross that divide by himself, just as he always had. An outsider in both worlds, he was used to loneliness. 

(Still, he wished it could be another way.)

\--

Duke Riegan hardly ever got time to himself, these days. With the war and Count Glouchester being a dick, Claude was usually arguing with someone. What they should do, what they shouldn’t, his capability or lack of it, he’s sick of it, frankly.

He thanked the monastery for teaching him another wonderful lesson: how to escape from a high floor silently (he had to get his midnight snacks after curfew somehow). 

He walked the sandy dunes at night, lucky to be wrapped in so many cloaks to keep out the chill. He just needed a moment without all of the pressure, the crushing loneliness that came with power and ambition. The cream sand was colored by the light of the moon, and his wish to be among the stars came full force, for only a moment, before he was disturbed by the feeling of his foot hitting something.

It was an egg. A wyvern egg, to be exact, but… it was white. Wyvern eggs were supposed to be a deep brown or tan in this region to blend in with the sand. He couldn’t see any other eggs or any signs of a nest, which was even more strange. A mother would never leave an egg by itself, especially in the desert where the temperature can vary so wildly.

It had been abandoned, then.

He needed to be alone, for once. It was just his luck that the one time he escaped a castle to be by himself, he found something too interesting to ignore. 

He picked up the egg and began heading back. If it was alive, then, well—

It’d be unethical to leave it, right?

\--

He used the fireplace to check if the egg was alive then he read up on wyvern nests and hatching the eggs, and finally, he looked up why the egg would be white.

_ Wyvern eggs can come in a multitude of colors depending on the regional characteristics, usually to blend in with the environment around them. The most common is a tan or gray color to blend in with rocks or caves, but in snowy regions, white or blue are also common. The mother will often abandon eggs that do not have proper camouflage in order to keep the rest of the clutch safe. While not entirely proven, the shell color usually depicts the color of the scales of the wyvern. Because of this, it is theorized that the mother also abandons eggs that would grow into wyverns that would be unable to survive in the current environment, killing it before it has a chance to live and waste her time and resources. _

“A white wyvern, huh?” He petted the egg he had wrapped in blankets—an outsider. “We match, then.”

\--

Wyvern eggs took around two months to properly develop, and Claude wasn’t entirely sure at what point he had found the egg, but it had to be shortly after being laid, as the mother usually abandoned the egg as soon as she realized it wasn’t dark enough. 

\--

63 days after he found the egg, he came back to his room to find it missing. In its place was a white wyvern, chewing on what looked like an eggshell. 

After a few beats of silence, he chuckled, kneeling. He offered a hand, and it sniffed it before giving it an enthusiastic lick or two, chirruping in joy. He began scratching it behind the antlers, the way Milady always liked. The chirrups continued before turning into purrs. He smiled, listening to the sounds of the pleased baby before him.

“Welcome to the real world, Galle. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

\-- 

Wyverns grew quickly, only six months from newborn to full size. To accommodate that growth, they ate a  _ lot. _ The amount of fish and deer carcasses Galle went through in those six months would be enough to make even Raphael balk, Claude was sure. Even as a baby, the reptile consumed more than some grown adults. It was a lot of work to keep the wyvern fed, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. After convincing Nader to teach the poor thing to fly (Nader’s wyvern Echidna, specifically), it was finally time for Claude and Galle’s first flight together. 

It didn’t go well. Neither did the first, the second, the third. 

Finally, on the twenty-eighth try, they managed to get into the sky without Claude bleeding. A feat in its own right, sure, but to make it even more perfect, it was evening, and the sky began to fade from orange to purple. He urged Galle to fly higher, hardly thinking of the consequences. This was the moment he had been waiting for since that fateful day at the monastery. He was finally going to touch the stars. 

The sky bled its final breath of dusk, letting the wave of purple fill the space around him. The stars began to glow, with the galaxy painted behind them. And there was Claude, right in the middle of it all. If he could touch the sky, surely he could reach his final goal. After all, this was much more difficult than politics, right? He smiled.

He reached up and let the stars paint his palm. 

At that moment, he knew that everything would work out.

\--

(The landing was not very pretty, but Claude didn’t talk about that..)

**Author's Note:**

> kudos/comment if you enjoyed !!! my twitter is @cormartur so feel free to talk to me there !!! <333


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